by E A Lake
Little did I know that even with the penicillin Wilson brought as a precaution that an infection would follow. That was not some little run-of-the-mill, come-and-go infection. No, it was a grand-mal infection.
Daisy trotted up with a glass of water and more pills. “Here, sweetie. It’s time again. Maybe that nasty infection is finally getting out of you.”
I pointed at the bucket. “Only thing coming out right now is lunch,” I moaned. “When is this going to pass?”
“When it passes,” Lettie crowed, “or when you finally die from it.” Her suppressed laugh didn’t help.
“You’re better today,” Daisy continued, rubbing a bare shoulder. “And I’ll bet you’ll feel even better tomorrow.”
This sucked big time. Not only was I devoid of any energy that would’ve allowed me to get up from the couch, I couldn’t even stomach the idea of going outside. If attackers ambushed us right now, the best I could hope for was to be killed first.
Violet came out of the bedroom and shut the door quietly. Seeing me in my suffering state, she smiled. That little bitch.
“And how’s our patient today?” Her voice, dripping with honey, her smile fake and wide. As she stepped through the doorway, she paused. Her smile faded and she covered her nose as she got close enough to get a whiff of the bucket. Grabbing its metal handle, she made toward the door. “I’m sorry,” she called back through a smile. “Maybe next week you’ll be well enough to get up and move around. Maybe.”
I’d be getting on my feet again, and soon, if I had anything to say about it. Then another wave of nausea ran through me and I puked on the bare floor.
Libby let out a loud “EWWWW!” and Daisy hustled over with an old red plaid dishtowel and another cup of tepid water.
Maybe another day, two at the most, I thought, sinking onto my side.
Day 1,055
Sitting in the warm summer sunshine, I let Libby chase flies away from my scabbed bare back. They could bite me for all I cared. Daisy didn’t appreciate the loud bursts of profanity that followed each shovel-nosed extraction by the black and deer flies though. We compromised: I’d let Libby swat me as much as she wanted and I wouldn’t swear…much.
I’d lost track of time since my latest losing gun battle. The others reminded me how happy they were I was alive. While that helped a little, I hated being an invalid. Honestly, I was the worst patient in the history of No Where.
For 10 days I laid on the couch, sometimes of the world and sometimes not. For the first seven, I couldn’t keep anything down, not flatbread, not water, not even spit. Everything came up within 10 minutes of ingestion. While that was lots of fun, my focus was on the fever that gave me the strangest dreams of my life.
The world came to me one morning, alive and full of sun and warmth. Someone had put me in my bed, the twin in the back room. Why the baby wasn’t there I wasn’t sure. But everything was quiet, clean, and warm, and the world felt good.
My scars had healed. Probably all of the coconut oil Lettie had rubbed on my body. My left side looked as new and fresh as my right. Gone was the ugly wound and raised flesh born when the shotgun slug tried to tear me in two.
I checked my back in a mirror. Those marks, too, had disappeared. Not one of the seven remained. Amazing, I thought. A little rest and some much-needed sleep had really done the trick. I needed to thank everyone for their help.
Opening the bedroom door, I flexed my left hand. Slowly I raised it before my face and discovered something wonderful. Against all odds, and everything I knew to be possible in nature, my left pinky had grown back. I marveled at its perfection, how it moved in harmony with the others as if it had never gone missing from the gunshot wound.
This was going to be a great day.
Golden waves of sunshine filled the main room of the cabin. The air temperature was perfect and allowed me to roam around bare-chested. My feet felt anew on the wood floor, sensing every crook and crack. And they didn’t hurt, not one bit.
I was refreshed and ready for whatever needed to be done. And I knew what came next. I was certain now was the time to go after our attackers and right the wrongs they’d brought upon us.
But that’s what made me stop. Where were the rest of us?
I listened for voices; perhaps they were just outside, working in the garden. That would make sense on such a wondrous day, I thought. Peeking out the window, I saw no one. And that bothered me.
If they had taken a walk together, the group ran the risk of running into road scum. That would make them vulnerable and that was not a good plan.
“What are you looking at?” a voice behind me asked. I turned to find Violet and a young lady standing behind me, hand in hand. At first, I thought it was Libby. However, the young lady had dark hair and looked to be six or seven years old.
“Where is everyone else?” I asked, confused by the girl and the dress that Violet wore. The long green and blue plaid sleeveless dress hugged her now mature form. She wasn’t 15 any longer. She looked more like that of a 20-something woman.
“Everyone else is gone, Bob,” she answered, releasing the girl’s hand and walking towards me. “It’s just you, me and Hope now. It has been for a while. Probably will be forever.”
She hugged me tightly. “I’ve missed you while you were gone. I was worried you might never come back.”
I didn’t understand, not a word of it. “Where’d I go?”
She looked up at me, stroking my clean-shaven face, running her fingers through my short hair.
“Oh, here and there,” she replied, standing on her tiptoes, gently kissing my lips. “But everything’s okay now. Everything is as it should be.”
She kissed me again, more passionate this time. As if…
“What are you doing?” I asked. Why I didn’t try to pull away, I didn’t know. But I didn’t.
She kissed me again, this time with an opened mouth. This caused me to think about pushing her away, but still I didn’t. I had no idea why I allowed it to continue.
When the passion ended, she led me to the table. But not a table I was familiar with. This was a large, beautifully set table with dishes of orange and gold and a stark-white tablecloth. A tall glass of cold beer waited at my spot.
I sipped the IPA, enjoying the mild taste, allowing it to swirl in my mouth before I swallowed. I almost cried as the familiar taste tickled my throat. It was perfect.
Hope sat a plate in front of me. On it was a large steak smothered in mushrooms, just as I liked. Next to the steak was a pile of baby potatoes, covered in melting bright yellow butter. At the top of the plate sat a pile of bright green Brussels sprouts with hunks of bacon.
Everything I loved, cooked perfectly and served with a smile.
I stared at my hostesses as they stood over me. “Where’s yours?” I asked, cutting my first bite of bloody steak. Somehow, Violet knew just how I liked it.
She sat on one side of me as Hope took a place opposite of her. “We don’t eat anymore, Bob. We don’t have to.”
I stuffed the meat in my mouth and chewed. Waiting for the flavor to caress my palate, I smiled at her. “Why don’t you eat? You mean you ate earlier?”
“No,” she replied, stroking my hand, kissing my moving lips again.
Only then did I realize that the steak had no taste. Leaning forward, I inhaled the steam from the meat, potatoes and vegetables. Nothing registered.
I looked back at Hope, but now she appeared tired and worn. Dark circles appeared where none were only moments ago. A glance at Violet showed the same. I spit the meat back onto the plate.
Shaking my head, I spun to face Violet. “What’s going on here? Where is everyone? Why doesn’t anything have taste or smell?”
I pulled at her hands while she smiled back at me. I noticed her teeth were gray and split. Several were missing.
“We’re all dead, Bob,” she answered in a placid tone. “You weren’t here to protect us. We all died. Lettie and Libby first. Then Daisy. Hope and
I held out as long as we could, but those mean men killed us in the end.”
“What about me?!” I yelled, now able to get a decent breath into my lungs.
Hope stroked my shoulder. “You never recovered from your wounds, Daddy. You died, too. Come outside and I’ll show you where we buried everyone.”
In an instant, we were standing by the road, the three of us holding hands. But their hands were boney now and even my skin had begun to gray.
In front of us were dozens of tombstones. I counted six rows of eight, far too many for just the few of us.
“That one is Libby’s,” Hope said, noting the far one towards the end. “And there’s Daisy’s, and Dizzy’s, and Frank’s.”
She led me by the hand as the rows and markers grew in numbers.
“Your mom and dad are buried over here,” she continued. She may have been dying in front of me, but Hope’s voice was as sweet as the winds through the pines. “Bud, his wife and children are back there. And here’s yours.”
The ground was all dead and full of bugs burrowing up to the surface. According to what I could tell, I’d been dead for a while.
“Where’s Violet’s, and yours, Hope?” I asked somberly.
Violet took my hand and led me across the road, deep into the woods.
“We died here,” she said, pointing at an area covered with shrubs and moss. “We have no graves, no markers. This is where they left us.”
What life was inside of my soul moments before had left me. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
Violet kissed my bare arm. “It’s okay, darling. Chester and his family had a feast with what was left of us. It’s the way it needed to be.”
Staring at the spot, I realized suddenly that I was alone. Violet and Hope had left me. I moved brush and noticed a few dulled white bones to my left. Behind them, a wolf, perhaps Chester, chewed on a ball.
My death led to the downfall of my family. Not just my blood family, or Shelly, but everyone. I was a fool for risking their lives for my selfish motives. But there was no way to change it.
Day 1,055 - continued
“Sweetheart, are you all right?”
Daisy’s voice caused me to jump, returning me to the present, away from my nightmare. I stared at her, memorizing each pore of her skin, every lash above her eyes, the small gaps between her tiny teeth.
“Yeah,” I answered, shaking away my fright. “Just thinking of a weird dream I had a few nights back, that’s all.”
“I brought you some water,” she continued, sitting next to me and opposite Libby. She smiled graciously and gazed at the beautiful day surrounding us. “The flies aren’t too bad for you, are they?”
I smiled at her as well. “No, not bad at all. And my little helper here is doing a good job keeping away the few that show up.”
She circled an arm through mine. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better. I was worried about you.” She kissed my arm gently. “A few more weeks and you should be as good as new.”
Yeah, two more weeks of sitting around, watching others do the jobs I should be doing. Not my way.
“Any word from Wilson as to the Barster gang?” I asked.
I felt her head dig in deeper to my arm; her squeeze tightening. “No,” she replied softly, almost sounding upset. “He’s had his boys check and no one has seen hide nor hair of them.”
Together we watched Lettie and Violet in the garden. On their hands and knees, each plucking whatever few weeds they could find. I was amazed that even with this crappy soil, Lettie was a master at her trade.
“I suppose that’s good,” I continued with the subject that caused Daisy’s distress. “Maybe they all bought the farm up in Covington. Or maybe they moved on.”
I felt her nod against my arm, her hold on it still as tight. “Yes,” she whispered, “maybe they’ve moved on.”
We ate a late dinner by candlelight. The warm glow lit the room to an almost viewable state. The cool night air crept in slowly, forcing the day’s warmth away.
“Garden’s looking good,” I said to my silent tablemates. “Should have the first harvest of vegetables soon from what I saw today.”
A few nods as a reply, but nothing more. No one dared to peek at me, their eyes focused on their plates.
“Hopefully I can start splitting wood again within a day or two,” I added, trying to sound twice as jovial as the group deserved. “Maybe I’ll just start by stacking the stuff I cut before the shoot-out. That’s probably best. Don’t want to push it too hard at first.”
A few more nods.
Lettie finally looked up at me. “Violet and Daisy stacked that crap a few days back,” she said, picking at something in her teeth. “You just rest until you’re fully healed.”
My turn to nod and smile. I was sick of resting and they all knew it.
“I’m gonna say something,” Violet stated in a firm tone, “and I don’t want anyone to bite my head off when I do.” The last few eyes came up from their picked at food.
“Vi, I know what you’re going to say—” Daisy tried to begin. But the teen cut her off.
“I heard you talking today,” Violet began her rant. “I heard what you said. And I’m going to give you my opinion.”
Crossing my arms, I pushed back from my spot. This should be good, I thought.
She rose from her place and began by pointing a finger my way. “You are not going after that gang. Not now, not in a few weeks, not ever. And that needs to be the end of the discussion.”
I rolled my eyes and caught her vicious stare. “Oh,” she continued, “I don’t get a say in this? Wanna bet? I have a daughter now. She deserves to be protected.”
Daisy jumped up and was quickly at her side, pulling on her arm. “Now Vi, we don’t need to discuss this. At least not for a while. Please don’t upset yourself. It’s not worth it.”
The girl spun on her friend. “Tell him how you feel, Daisy. Tell him what you told me last week.”
That piqued my interest. “Yeah Daisy, tell me how you feel,” I said.
She turned and faced me, fighting back tears with a watery smile. “I just think,” she paused, taking a deep breath, “maybe if we talked about it. Perhaps, Bob…” The words came in sputters, forced.
“She thinks you’re an idiot if you go after that gang,” Violet spewed. “She doesn’t want to see you die either.”
I nodded slightly at Daisy. “Is that what you think?”
She came towards me, crouching beside my chair. “I never said you were an idiot. What I told Violet,” she peeked back at the scowling girl, “is that, in my mind, it was a foolish thing for you to try. That’s all. Just how I feel about it.”
“And Lettie?” Violet added, seething a little less now.
The old woman shrugged. “You damn near get killed every year in your own front yard. Can’t see where you need to run off to do it again, somewhere else this time. That’s all.”
I fumed silently for a few moments. “So you’re all against me going and taking care of this, instead of fighting this battle at our own home?”
Violet nodded in an exaggerated fashion. Daisy smiled, Lettie shrugged again.
“I can’t promise anything,” I said, keeping my voice low. I wanted to scream at them all. I wanted to bang some sense into their thick skulls. However, I also didn’t want to wake the baby or frighten Libby. “But at least I know how you all feel. I appreciate your honesty.”
“We just want you safe,” Daisy said, kissing my cheek.
“We just want you here,” Violet added, taking her place again.
And I just wanted this over with, one way or another. But that would be a delicate sell. And that would require another week of rehab and several more discussions with the most stubborn people in No Where.
Day 1,056
Our food supply was meager. Without my hunting prowess and not much from the garden yet, we were low on rations again. Unfortunately, the only thing Wilson was in good suppl
y of was protein. And while that kept us alive, we needed something besides meat in our diet.
Lettie had little Libby pick as many dandelions as she could each and every day. The smiling girl would pick a bucket, then a second (and sometimes a third) and Lettie would thank her with a kiss and grand praise. What the old woman did with the greens gagged me, but we needed it.
In a pot of bubbling water, Lettie placed the green leaves and boiled them into a stew. It was really more of a sticky thick broth, but calling it stew made it edible. Every evening, we all had to gag a bowl of steaming hot dandelion green down our unwilling throats. And none were pleased.
“Oh my, these are even bitterer than the last batch,” Daisy grimaced between bites of pork, bread and tiny spoonful of the stew. “There has to be a way to take away some of the bitterness.”
Lettie pondered this, her face scrunched. “There are several ingredients to add. If I had my cupboard back at my old place, I could come up with something.” She scooped a large spoonful of green slime into her mouth, swallowing it with great effort. “But that’s all gone, so you’ll have to make the best of it.”
Violet pushed her bowl away. “I’d rather die than eat another bite of this shit.” Lettie seemed unoffended by the teen’s terse words.
“Now Vi,” Daisy started, “we can’t have little Hope growing up without a mother. So you’ll have to force it down somehow.”
Libby played with a piece of bread at her spot. “I can’t eat mine. They make me want to throw up.”
I couldn’t blame the child. I had to fight the bile back with each spoonful. There had to be more, something perhaps even palatable, that nature had to offer.
“Tomorrow we’ll go searching for fiddle-head ferns and wild mushrooms,” Lettie offered, wiping her mouth and grinning at the green residue on her cloth napkin. “And we need Thaddeus to show up with some soap pretty soon as well. We all stink and our clothes ain’t much better.”